Church or Beer? Americans on Twitter

In honor of the anniversary when American colonists kicked out the oppressive British (apologies to Mark and other oppressive Brits) today is the birthday of the United States. Traditionally it is celebrated by attempting to blow up or burn a small part of it with fireworks, and given the dry conditions at the moment, we may very well succeed at this beyond our wildest expectations.

But until #badideaswithfireworks becomes a trending hash tag, we thought we'd use Twitter to explore some of the regional differences that are rending the fabric of society make America great. It also gives us a chance to showcase some of the potential of our nascent DOLLY project (feel free to visit the Knight News Challenge website and comment positively!), which integrates and maps geographic social media and official data sources. DOLLY is still not quite ready for general use, but the backend database is all set which makes it really easy to pull out user generated geocoded data, in this case from Twitter.

So in honor of the 4th of July, we selected all geotagged tweets^[1] sent within the continental US between June 22 and June 28 (about 10 million in total) and extracted all tweets containing the word "church" (17,686 tweets of which half originated on Sunday) or "beer" (14,405 tweets which are much more evenly distributed  throughout the week). See below for more technical details^[2] or just go straight to the map below to see the relative distribution of the tweets in the U.S.

Relative Number of Tweets containing the terms "church" or "beer" aggregated to the county level, June 22-28, 2012

This map clearly illustrates some fairly big regional divides (more on that in a bit) but it is worth drilling down a bit to see how this plays out at the local level.  San Francisco has the largest margin in favor of "beer" tweets (191 compared to 46 for "church") with Boston (Suffolk county) running a close second. Los Angeles has the distinction of containing the most tweets overall (busy, busy thumbs in Southern California). In contrast, Dallas, Texas wins the FloatingSheep award for most geotagged tweets about "church" with 178 compared to only 83 about "beer."

Of course, since these are tweets, the content is decidedly less spiritual than one might expect given the focus on beer and church.  For example, the most common example of a "church" tweet was simply a report such as "I am at _______ church".  More amusing are what we characterize as "competitive church going" when one person replaces another as the Foursquare "mayor" of a church. "I just ousted Jef N. as the mayor of Dallas Bible Church on @foursquare! 4sq.com/5hNW6x" 

This of course echoes the Sermon on the Mount and the famous verse, "Blessed are those who check in for they shall inherit the badges of righteousness."  Another common category were politically related tweets such as "#ICantDateYou If You Dont Go To Church" or "@____ you're right. It's like separation of church and state. But they really shouldn't be separated. #twitterpolitics". 

Given the cultural content of the "church" tweets, the clustering of relatively more "church" than "beer" content in the southeast relative to the north-east suggests that this could be a good way to identify the contours of regional difference. In order to quantify these splits, we ran a Moran's I test for spatial auto-correlation which proved to be highly significant as well.^[3] Without going into too much detail, this test shows which counties with high numbers of church tweets are surrounded by counties with similar patterns (marked in red) and which counties with many beer tweets are surrounded by like-tweeting counties (marked in blue).  Intriguingly there is a clear regional (largely north-south split) in tweeting topics which highlights the enduring nature of local cultural practices even when using the latest technologies for communication.

We also note that this map strongly aligns with the famous 'red state'/'blue state' map from the 2000, 2004, and 2008 elections with a strong "religious right" component in the Southeastern United States (see also The Virtual 'Bible Belt') and a more liberal, or at least beer-tweeting, Northeast and upper Midwest (see also The Beer Belly of America).

In any case, happy 4th of July to our American readership. We hope you enjoy your beer in the north, or your church service if you are tweeting from the south.

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[1] It is important to note that geotagged tweets are somewhat of an oddity among tweets, as only one to three percent of tweets (depending on the country) are geotagged.  Still a small percentage of a very large number (the total number of tweets) results in a LOT of data.
 
[2] There are a number of technical issues tied to the validity and scale of geography associated with tweets which we won't go into here but it is worth mentioning that we are NOT using user profile locations.  This data is limited to geographic information associated with each tweet, often drawn from a GPS capable device.  While the relevant scale at which analysis can be done differs between tweets about 90 percent of the tweets in this sample are accurate on the city level or lower which works well for this analysis.
 
[3] Based on  IDW matrix for 2.34 decimal degrees (Euclidean distance), this test achieved a z-score of 14.34, implying there is a less than 1% likelihood that this high-clustered pattern could be the result of random chance.

The (Expanded) Pop vs. Soda Debate

It's a question that will never have any definitive answer, try as we might to analyze it's fullest depths. Of course, we're talking about what one calls a carbonated beverage. Thanks to the earlier work of fellow geographer Alan McConchie, the aptly named "The Great Pop vs. Soda Controversy", there remains a solid baseline for analyzing the spatial variations in what one calls a carbonated beverage -- does one prefer "pop" over "soda"? or does a vaguely specific "coke" suffice to account for all other carbonated drinks?

The map below, created using the survey data Alan collected, breaks down the usage of pop, soda and coke, as well as other generic terms, by county across the United States. Unsurprising to anyone who has ever had an unnecessarily long debate with a friend or acquaintance about whose terminology was more correct, there are very clear regional differences in the words used to describe those oh-so-tasty beverages.

Map of Soft Drinks based on Survey Data from Alan McConchie

While the south prefers "coke", much of the northeast, along with pockets along the west coast, the Missouri-Illinois border and eastern Wisconsin go for "soda", while pretty much everywhere else from western New York to the Pacific Ocean uses "pop". And while there are obviously some very linguistically conflicted places (e.g., Alaska), the map generally conforms to the anecdotal evidence that many, including myself, have gathered over the course of many asinine arguments.

Doing as we like to do, however, we thought we'd complicate the picture a bit. Whereas the data for the above map was pulled from a voluntary survey, we thought we would deploy the collective intelligence of the geoweb, as represented by references to particular keywords in the Google Maps database, to make our own map. In addition to the usual pop, soda and coke, we included references to "soft drink" in the map. Draft versions of this map also included references to "fizzy drink" and "carbonated beverage"; alas, there were so few references to these keywords that there was no point in including them.

Map of Soft Drinks based on References in Google Maps

The most evident thing from looking at the map of Google Maps references is that it does not clearly conform to the survey data shown in the first map above. While references to "coke" are obviously most prevalent in the south, as with the original Pop vs. Soda map, they are prevalent to a much lesser degree. After that, the whole thing starts to unravel a bit.

While there are a significant number of places where references to "soda" are greater, they do not have any clear spatial pattern. This appears to largely be due to the simple dominance of references to "pop" across the country. Although "pop" can clearly have a wider variety of meanings than "soda" or "coke", whether a nickname for a father or grandfather, an onomatopoeia or a verb, among other uses, it's not exactly clear why these would lead to such a larger number of references across the United States.

Although the explanation is probably overdone at this point, the Floatingsheep Collective remains suspicious of nefarious plots to significantly alter the content indexed by Google Maps in a show of digital imperialism. In this case, various tribes from Seattle across the Great Plains to Chicago and through the Rust Belt to Buffalo have banded together in order to achieve some final resolution to the great debate of what one should call a carbonated beverage. Violence is not the answer folks. Let's all just sit back, relax, and have a coke.

Preparing for the Zombie Apocalypse, Part I: Zombies or Old People?

The following is pulled from the cutting room floor of our upcoming chapter in the edited collection Zombies in the Academy: Living Death in Higher Education.

With all the recent talk of the zombie apocalypse, including our own forthcoming book chapter on a similar topic, we've been worried that the older and slightly disheveled population has been put at greater risk of personal injury due to their being confused for the undead [1]. Always eager to lend a helping hand, the Floatingsheep collective has turned to the infinite wisdom of the collective internet to map the relative prevalence of zombies and old people. It is our hope that this guide will help lower the level of zombie hunter on senior citizen violence that has plagued human kind for generations [2].

Zombies and Old People in Europe

Europe, for example, presents a quite clear picture of the spatial variation in the zombie and elderly populations. Word to the wise for our transatlantic zombie-hunting compatriots: hold your fire in France and Germany. Though we have no idea why there are so many old people, do make note that these are innocent citizens. Unless, however, the zombies have established a colony in these countries and have just effectively been able to hide their presence under the guise of retirement homes [3].

Do, however, be on the lookout in the low countries, as zombies appear to be rampant in the Netherlands as well as much of Belgium [4].

Zombies and Old People in the USA

When looking only at the United States, however, there is no such easily discernible spatial pattern. Though much of the eastern seaboard appears to be dominated by zombies, this corpse cluster is bookended by small concentrations of the merely elderly in both Washington, D.C. and Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Given our earlier finding of Cape Cod as being the highest concentration of "fun" in the United States, we're not sure if this should be surprising. While many may not consider shuffleboard and iced tea to be the most fun things in the world, I believe we can find some general agreement on the fact that a zombie apocalypse is most certainly NOT fun. If it is a choice between spending a weekend with the undead or the old-fashioned, I think we're all going to pick grandma and grandpa.

Ultimately it appears as if zombie hunters in the United States will be forced to use their best judgment, rather than the tools of spatial visualization, to determine who needs to be taken out in the event of the zombie apocalypse.

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[1] No senior citizens were harmed in the making of this crass, terrible attempt at humor. Plus it was Mark's idea. We also thought "confused people" might be mistaken for zombies as well but despite our expectations -- and considerable evidence all around us in the material world -- searches for for references to the phrase "confused people" in the geoweb did not produce many results.

[2] And it came to pass, when Israel had made an end of slaying all the zombies of Ai in the field, in the wilderness wherein they chased them, and when they were all fallen on the edge of the sword, until they were consumed, that all the Israelites returned unto Ai, and smote it with the edge of the sword. And so it was, that all that fell that day, both of male and female zombies, were twelve thousand, For Joshua drew not his hand back, wherewith he stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the zombies of Ai and a good deal of the older and slower moving people as well. Book of Joshua, Chapter 8, versus 24-26

[3] The lack of cognitive abilities on the part of zombies does make this theory somewhat less plausible. But when you're talking about the zombie apocalypse, you can never be too careful.

[4] Or, perhaps if we had also done a search on "stoned people", the pattern would be different.

Guest Map: Surnames in the U.S.

Just a cool map from National Geographic on the distribution of surnames (a.k.a. last names) in the United States. It is interactive so zoom on in and see what last name predominates in your neck of the woods.

Celebrating the One Year Anniversary of America's Beer Belly

Today is an important day, but you probably don't know why. In the lore of Floatingsheep, February 1st is a very important day...

One year ago today, the wonders of America's Beer Belly, as discovered by the Floatingsheep Collective, were announced to the world-at-large. By far the most popular single post in our relatively short history, the Beer Belly of America was eventually featured everywhere from The New York Times and Andrew Sullivan's blog on The Atlantic to Strange Maps, FlowingData and the Consumerist.

The Beer Belly of America

Our extrapolation that the prevalence of bars as compared to grocery stores in the American upper Midwest (using directory listings from Google Maps) was indicative of some cultural characteristic may or may not have been especially daring. But one thing is clear: in addition to the official statistics from the Census Bureau, the innumerable comments generated on this blog and many others served as corroboration for our claims.

Whether it took us 'discovering' it, or just giving it a name, we now know that Wisconsin, Illinois and much of the Great Plains are the true Beer Belly of America.

Guest Map: The United States of Autocomplete

Just a fun map of the first autocomplete guess you get when you type a state name in google.